Off the I-15

Before jurors heard closing arguments in the trial of Robert Harrison, a Newberry Springs man charged with kidnapping and raping a 9-year-old girl, they sat through an hour and a half monologue from Judge Jules Fleuret — jury instructions.

The jury instructions instruct, duh, jurors how to weigh evidence, apply it to specific facets of charges and reach a verdict. Simple, right. Wrong. During his closing argument, defense attorney Michael Duncan apologized to the jury for the complexity of the instructions. He said the state legislature’s need to re-write them every two years has muddled them into an indecipherable mess.

Consider this suggestion from the jury instructions:
“The testimony of only one witness can prove a fact. Before deciding whether a witness testimony proves a fact, please consider all the evidence in the case.” Huh?

Judges and lawyers spent years in law school and hours behind books studying the law and how to use it. Then, they throw it at a group of average citizens — a jury of the defendant’s peers. To help the jury wrap their minds around this legal nonsense, both Fleuret and deputy defense attorney Kay Neshat employed some clever analogies.

Fleuret on the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence:
If a witness says they saw it was raining outside, that is direct evidence that it is raining outside. If a witness says that they saw someone come inside wearing a rain coat with drops of water on it, that is only circumstantial evidence that it is raining outside.

Neshat on considering charged crimes and lesser and included crimes. (Note: In Harrison’s case, he faces eight charged crimes, each with a handful of lesser and included crimes the jury could convict him of instead of the charged crime.)
You could eat eggs, sugar, flour, milk, each on their own, but if you throw them together, they could make some sort of cake or pancake batter. The charged crime is the final product. The lesser and included crimes are analogous to the ingredients.

Now you’re a legal expert.

— Aaron Aupperlee | Staff writer

A look at the inner workings of the Barstow Unified School District through selected statistics:

Part one: The cost of suspensions

$196,476 — The amount of money lost to the district through the absence of 2,530 students suspended for a total of 6,338 days during the 2007/2008 school year.

School funding in California is based on the number of days each student actually spends in school, the Average Daily Attendance figure. Each absence or suspension results in lost state funding for the school.

Source: The BUSD 2006/2007 school suspension report.

Part two: A pricey back to school shopping list

$6,139,787.22 — The total amount of purchase orders for the upcoming school year approved at Tuesday’s meeting.

A sampling of the items (large and small) included in the $6,139,787.22:
$6,000 for contracted services from Interquest Detection Canines
$8,000 for maintenance supplies from Grillo’s Filter Sales and Service
$15,000 for food services from Frito-Lay Inc.
$41,800 for food services from Coca-Cola Enterprises
$65,000 for postage from the United States Postal Service
$180,000 for food services from Domino’s Pizza
$2,458,000 for contracted services from Laidlaw Transit Inc.

Source: Purchase Order Board Report for the July 24, 2007 Board Meeting

Jason Smith

Pedestrians hoping to cross Lime Street on their way to Orange Lane or Cantaloupe Court probably won’t be able to do so anytime soon in Barstow. At a Planning Commission meeting last night, several commissioners raised that concerns that the proposed list of fruit-themed street names wasn’t “desert-y” enough.

The list of ten proposed names for streets for the National Trails Properties development was not well received by commissioners who thought that the tropical sounding names didn’t reflect the local environment.
“I’ve never heard of some of those fruit,” said associate planner Mike Massimini.
‘It sounds like a pack of those fruit candies,” said Planning Commission Chairman Mike Lewis.
Name must be approved by the planning commission and the city currently has a policy of naming streets after local war heroes. There are fears however that this supply of names will be exhausted, as tens of thousands of new homes are being planned in the area over the coming decades.
The list of proposed names:
Sun Valley Ct.
Sun Valley Lane
Sweeten Ct.
Sunburst
Lime
Orange
Sunray
Strawberry
Watermelon
Cantaloupe

Before Tuesday’s relinquishment of responsibility ceremony, soldiers from the 11th ACR presented outgoing Command Sgt. Maj. Ricky Pring with a branding iron in the shape of the iconic Blackhorse regiment’s shoulder sleeve insignia.

“This is the greatest thing,” Pring said holding the branding iron up during the ceremony. “It was made by soldiers, made from scrap.”

Pring holds up the branding iron during the ceremony.

Pring thanks the Blackhorse soldiers.

And according to Pring, it will be the centerpiece of his home. He warned his wife, Petra, that he would sell all of the furniture in the house that did not go with his new branding iron. If that happens, there will be a garage sale at the Prings’ house, he said, where his son will let you name your price so he doesn’t have to stand out in the sun all day.

The insignia, approved on May 1, 1967, during the regiment’s deployment in Vietnam, features a rearing black horse on a red and white shield. Red and white are the traditional cavalry colors and the black horse alludes to the regiment’s nickname, “Blackhorse,” according the 11th ACR’s pocket-sized history handbook.

11th ACR soldiers lead a cavalry charge across Fort Irwin’s soccer field at the conclusion of Tuesday’s ceremony.

If you were near the intersection of Virginia Way and Barstow Road around 3:30 and heard the fire engine’s horn and siren go off, it was a false alarm.

Fire Capt. Dale Lintner was giving me a ride in the engine to the near-by parking lot where two firefighters were training. I sat in the front passenger seat and without knowing it, activated the horn and siren with my feet.

Lintner gave the engine’s dash a puzzled look. He could not figure out why the horn sounded on its own. Then he saw my feet planted firmly on two pedals that control the noise makers on the engine.

Oops! No harm done, except that the firefighters training thought they had to spring into action, but it was a false alarm.